The special meeting of the Federal Cabinet was held under the chairmanship of the PM

September 10, 2013

The special meeting of the Federal Cabinet was held under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif at Prime Minister’s office today.

In his remarks the Prime Minister said that economic development is the only way forward but terrorism and extremism are badly hampering the economic turnaround in Pakistan. He said that the country is passing through difficult times and we are evolving a consensus strategy to sort out all issues confronting the nation.

The Prime Minister said that during his previous tenures as the Prime Minister of the country his Government was following the policy of free market economy which led to faster economic growth at that time. We have again started with the same policy with enlarged vision and increased vigour, the Prime Minister added.

The Cabinet discussed good management practices to be adopted by the Government sector to make it more effective, efficient and accountable. The Prime Minister expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the PIA during the meeting and said that it is incurring Rs. 3.3 billion monthly losses due to its inefficiency, corruption and malpractices. At present we are only dealing with day to day crisis at PIA. Taxpayer’s hard earned money is being paid to PIA to bail it out of economic crisis and sustain itself, and this situation cannot continue any more, the Prime Minister added. The Prime Minister said that this money should be invested in power sector and development of other resources instead of sustaining the inefficient PIA. He said that over employment and low quality services have led to downfall of our national airline, which once was the world’s best. He directed the PIA Management to provide a detailed briefing on the present situation of PIA and bring about concrete proposals to reform PIA.

Senator Dato’ Siri Idris Jala, Minister in Malaysian Prime Minister’s Office and CEO Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PMDU), Government of Malaysia attended the Cabinet meeting on special invitation of the Prime Minister. He shared his experiences of Malaysian Economic Programmes and Government Transformation. He informed the Cabinet that Malaysia transformed its economy by devising short term plans within the framework of its larger strategic programmes, and set time-line for achieving those plans by giving key performance indicators. The public as well as private sectors were involved, through well defined process, in devising these policies and making them achievable, he added. He informed the Cabinet that the procedures were made simple to attract investors, both foreign and domestic.

The Prime Minister said that Government of Pakistan is following an economic model whereby key development sectors have been identified and prioritized. Moreover systems are being simplified. Prime Minister told that his government has prioritized economy, energy and modernizing infrastructure all over the country and investment in power sector. He added that a team of experts is working on the reforms action plan, Pakistan can learn from the success stories of Malaysia and replicate the same in Pakistan, he added. The Prime Minister said that we look forward to working closely with Malaysian government. Prime Minister also recalled his association with Mr. Mahatir Muhammad, the then Prime Minister of Malaysia, and said that they had extensive discussions on the economic reforms and shared experiences of each other. The Prime Minister said that a high powered delegation would soon visit Malaysia to further strengthen cooperation particularly in the economic field between the two countries. The Prime Minister thanked the Malaysian delegation and extended invitation to Malaysian Prime Minister to visit Pakistan.